Hello Houston – The Commuter Cut (October 5, 2026)

A small school district east of Houston has built an education foundation worth roughly $200 million.

But the way that money was raised and invested is now drawing scrutiny from Texas lawmakers.

Barbers Hill Independent School District Superintendent Greg Poole redirected nearly $100 million in district funds into the foundation, which then invested the money and grew its assets to about $200 million.

So now lawmakers are raising questions about the foundation's structure, potential conflicts of interest, and whether some of its practices comply with state law.

So joining us to break it all down, why lawmakers are taking a closer look at the district's financial practices is Bianca Stewart, a reporter here at Houston Public Media.

Bianca, welcome to the show.

Thanks for

having me, guys.

Tess and I were both like, this sounds great.

I'm guessing we're missing something in this story because on the surface, to double your investment? Kudos.

Every school district should be doing this.

What are we missing?

OK, so it's a very complicated story.

And yes, there's many people in that same camp that believe they've doubled the district's funds.

This is an excellent way to grow the district's finances.

Now, there's a couple of different things at play here that have worried people.

One of the things is we'll start with the Education Foundation.

Education foundations are common across the state.

Hundreds exist.

And usually what they do is they raise a little bit of money and they pump it directly back into the district.

in the form of teacher grants or maybe they're buying computers for the school.

That's kind of how they operate.

And mostly they raise that money through private donors.

What Barbers Hill has done is diverted some of the district's funds to this education foundation and allowed it to grow as an investment portfolio.

When I talked to Dr. Poole, who gave me a lengthy interview and was very gracious to give me his time and explain what they had built, is that he was building more of a protective base bank, basically, for the district for a big rainy day to someday come.

A small school district east of Houston has built an education foundation worth roughly $200 million.

But the way that money was raised and invested is now drawing scrutiny from Texas lawmakers.

Barbers Hill Independent School District Superintendent Greg Poole redirected nearly $100 million in district funds into the foundation, which then invested the money and grew its assets to about $200 million.

So now lawmakers are raising questions about the foundation's structure, potential conflicts of interest, and whether some of its practices comply with state law.

So joining us to break it all down, why lawmakers are taking a closer look at the district's financial practices is Bianca Stewart, a reporter here at Houston Public Media.

Bianca, welcome to the show.

Thanks for

having me, guys.

Tess and I were both like, this sounds great.

I'm guessing we're missing something in this story because on the surface, to double your investment? Kudos.

Every school district should be doing this.

What are we missing?

OK, so it's a very complicated story.

And yes, there's many people in that same camp that believe they've doubled the district's funds.

This is an excellent way to grow the district's finances.

Now, there's a couple of different things at play here that have worried people.

One of the things is we'll start with the Education Foundation.

Education foundations are common across the state.

Hundreds exist.

And usually what they do is they raise a little bit of money and they pump it directly back into the district.

in the form of teacher grants or maybe they're buying computers for the school.

That's kind of how they operate.

And mostly they raise that money through private donors.

What Barbers Hill has done is diverted some of the district's funds to this education foundation and allowed it to grow as an investment portfolio.

When I talked to Dr. Poole, who gave me a lengthy interview and was very gracious to give me his time and explain what they had built, is that he was building more of a protective base bank, basically, for the district for a big rainy day to someday come.